My Summer of Love and Misfortune

by Lindsay Wong

  I wish we had brought backup.

  Why didn’t we ask our bodyguard to come with us? What were we doing sneaking off without telling anyone?

  I’m suddenly full of regrets.

  Beijing has made me smarter, deeper, but also sadder overall as a person with higher emotional intelligence and multiple feelings.

  For the first time in my life, I’m speechless when we reach our destination. We stare down at a slum of broken, run-down houses. Tightly packed together, they are connected into a neighborhood of concrete slabs. Grimy clotheslines and plastic bags hang out of windows, and children and stray dogs mull around. I have never seen so much poverty in real time, and it feels like a different world from my uncle’s seven-star hotels.

  Nervously, I blink.

  Frank/Paul glances at me with a worried, scrunched-up expression on his face.

  I can’t look at him.

  Frank/Paul begins talking in a low, urgent voice. It’s almost as if he’s thought and practiced what he’s wanted to say thousands of times. His voice quakes like movie theater speakers; it’s a familiar sound, but I can’t place it. Then I understand. It’s real volcanic anger. Jurassic Park destruction meets Star Wars desperation. The kind that can burn a person’s insides to a crisp. Like my dad imploding when he saw my grandfather on the iPhone screen for the first time after almost two decades.

  “There are two hundred fifty-seven million rural migrant workers in China,” the impostor called Frank says. “I know you hate my lectures, Iris, but this is really important. Most of us don’t have basic rights to education and housing. A few years ago, my mom was injured in a sewing factory accident near here and I have been taking care of her. This is our home. We have nowhere to go.”

  He glares at Ruby and I suddenly feel protective over my cousin.

  “Iris, your uncle wants to tear our neighborhood down to build a brand-new hotel,” he says, almost pleadingly.

  “What does this have to do with lying to me?” I say, feeling confused. I’m hurt and angry and also shocked by his admission of having an ulterior motive.

  To my surprise, Ruby shushes me. “Let him talk.”

  “My university friends and I have been petitioning Feng Corp for months and we didn’t have any luck. Then we heard that the CEO was hiring a tutor for his niece. I speak the best English. It was Kitty’s idea and we all went along with it. When we were in the hot springs, I almost changed my mind. You were nice and funny and we had such an amazing time that I felt so guilty. So I phoned Kitty and she reminded me that we were so close to making a difference. I took your hotel key and credit card when you had your appointment with Madame Xing. I’m sorry.”

  “My key?” I exclaim, at the same time Ruby asks, “Visa card?”

  It makes sense now. Frank’s reluctance and confusion in Chengdu. I had attributed it to the awkwardness of a first hookup that blurred professional boundaries. I just assumed Frank felt guilty about taking Uncle Dai’s money while being involved with his niece. But Frank slept with me after getting the key card. Anger floods through my entire nervous system. He lied to me and stole from me.

  Frank looks ashamed and sorry. “Kitty and our group wanted to sneak in and scare your uncle into relocating the hotel.”

  Scare Uncle Dai? By violence? I think back to the protestors surrounding our car. Acid rises to my throat. I want to throw up. I want to cry and scream. If I were the violent type, I’d honestly push him off the roof.

  Instead, I just stare at him. I thought I knew reliable and nice and apology-giving Frank. “You were going to do what?” I ask. “Were you one of the protestors at the restaurant?”

  Frank looks confused. “No, what—?”

  Ruby pulls out her phone and waves it around. “I’m going to call the police!” she warns.

  “I understand if you do,” Frank says, looking down. He fidgets with his hands, resting them on his sides and then clasping them behind his back. “It was really horrific of us. People are protesting all over China and we wrote over a hundred petitions to your uncle’s company to stop the hotel. We wanted to make a difference. Beijing is losing her culture to the fuerdai.

  “Things have to change in Beijing and all you nouveau riche are taking over the city with your elite hotels. You don’t seem to care what happens to the poor. We need housing and we need new schools. Do you know that they cram eighty migrant children in one classroom? They don’t even have books and there’s barely enough money to pay a teacher. What we don’t need is another seven-star hotel.

  “If you call the police, please don’t tell my mother. She doesn’t even know what I’ve done. I just wanted to help her, but it got out of control. She doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t even deserve me as a son.”

  He hangs his head.

  His posture slumps in defeat.

  “I just care about my mother. Not what happens to me.”

  Horrified, I stare at him. I don’t understand. Frank was just using me to get to my uncle?

  I can’t believe it.

  How could I start to actually fall for a dude who didn’t give a shit about me? How could I be so oblivious?

  Frank was supposed to be a safe Chinese Parent Approved boy. Not a duplicitous user and snake.

  A fury similar to Frank’s anger about his horrible circumstances hits me. I want to scream at no one and everyone. Who is this monster? Are boys in Beijing just like American ones, except they are better-looking and smoother talkers?

  “Iris, I’m so so so sorry.” Frank is looking at me, as if he is overcome with genuine guilt.

  I stare everywhere but at him, and I can’t help but think about his poor mother who was handicapped by shitty working conditions. But to help her, Frank would choose to hurt MY family? Does it make it okay to sacrifice and deceive other people for the one person that you love?

  Absolutely not.

  Even though I feel for Frank, I couldn’t emotionally and physically wound another living person or thing on purpose. Maybe this is because my heart has been bashed by too many terrible boys as well as my ex–childhood bestie. But who gets to choose whose individual hurts are tiny cuts or gaping wounds? No one should decide whose injury is more important.

  My blood pounds like a migraine headache.

  Uncle Dai, Auntie Yingfei, Ruby, and my grandparents are like having additional arms. It used to be just me, my mom, and my dad in New Jersey, but I have gained five different appendages in Beijing. On Frank/Paul’s rooftop, I feel like a furious, unstoppable octopus with all-reaching superpowers. If my math is correct, I have eight magnificent limbs that I care about deeply, and I would be seriously upset if I injured or lost one.

  “Wait!” I say to Ruby. “I have more questions for this liar.”

  Ruby stops dialing. She has gone super still. Like she’s in catatonic shock. I can’t even tell what she’s thinking.

  “Are you even a student at Tsinghua University?” I manage to ask.

  Frank flushes and nods. “That’s the part I didn’t lie to you about. I won a full scholarship for my work in English and classical Chinese literature.”

  “You could have just asked me to talk to my uncle,” I say quietly. “You could have just talked to Ruby and me at the party.”

  My words fall out so fast that even I don’t believe I’m saying them. Bitterness, like a piece of tortilla chip, lodges itself in my throat. It’s stuck and no matter how much I swallow, it’s still there.

  “Iris, I just didn’t think you would understand! No one in Beijing cares about migrant workers. I really wanted to tell you at the hot springs.…”

  “You could have just said that it was important and I would have helped you. How does pretending that you liked me make it okay? How does lying to me and getting close to me justify what you did?!!”

  I’m screaming now. Tears are falling out of my eyeballs like acid rain. I can’t help it. I thought I was done with liars. I thought that I had left them all behind in America.

 
“I honestly thought you liked me,” I say, feeling foolish.

  “Iris,” Frank/Paul says. “I really did. I mean, I do like you!”

  “You have a really WTF way of showing it,” I say furiously.

  Ruby is staring down at the assortment of rooftop houses, which look like ransacked shacks. A very naked woman carrying a naked baby over her shoulder is crying. Three more naked children follow her out of the house. Someone pours something brown and liquid outside of a window above us. It falls near us, but we manage to mostly jump out of the way. But some of the brown residue splashes on our clothes. I shriek. Ruby grimaces. Frank doesn’t even react.

  I can’t imagine living here.

  I can’t imagine growing up here, and hoping for change.

  It suddenly makes sense why Frank has been so horrified by my laziness and inability to value the tutoring sessions that I was given.

  Ruby also grew up in a shack like these while I lived in a brand-new seven-bedroom house in the suburbs.

  But my mind can’t get over the fact that Frank/Paul lied to me to get to my uncle. He used me to hurt my family.

  My family is the most important thing to me.

  They’re more valuable than six designer purses and being Number 16 in Forbes Asia.

  During our conversation, Ruby has gone super pale. Her eyes narrow. Her breathing quickens, as if she’s suddenly sprinting.

  I expect her to murder Frank/Paul with her eye-rolling and her signature Rottweiler sneer.

  “We can fix this,” she says instead. “I have a brilliant idea.”

  31

  Emergency Meeting

  Ruby texts her parents at work. This time, she labels her group message as EMERGENCY, and everyone scurries to our hotel room. Auntie Yingfei arrives first, looking breathless. She reminds me of a kindly kindergarten teacher in a flowy dress rather than a banker.

  Face reddening, she doesn’t even sit down before demanding that Ruby and I answer her question. She sounds as if she ran a marathon in the Olympic Games. “Is it true Weijun having … baby?”

  She exhales the last words like she’s in shock.

  “What?” I say.

  “Huh?” Ruby says again.

  She hands me a copy of the China Daily, which is apparently a gossip magazine (there’s me on page six with Madame Xing). I gasp loudly. I look fantastic and so does Madame Xing, who looks wise and mystical at the same time. Like she’s some otherworldly beaver in her fur coat.

  The hot springs must have done something to my skin, because I’m practically glowing, and then I wonder if she cured my Tiger whiskers.

  I touch my lip carefully. I still have a few stubborn hairs, but much less than before.

  Never mind.

  “What does it say?” I ask, incredulous. “This is so exciting!”

  Ruby and Auntie Yingfei look at me, both a little scandalized and horrified. They exchange looks.

  “I’m not pregnant!” I finally say. “It’s all a ridiculous misunderstanding.”

  Auntie Yingfei looks at me. “What you talking?”

  “Mistake!” I say. “Not pregnant!”

  Uncle Dai arrives. “Who is pregnant?” he asks, sounding alarmed. “Ruby is having a baby?!”

  “NO!” Ruby exclaims.

  “Good,” Uncle Dai says. “Just checking if anyone hurt? We just have university students try to break in at the Shangri-La. Hotel security stop them. I need to give a report later.”

  Ruby and I exchange meaningful glances.

  We both don’t say anything.

  Without knowing, Frank must have taken the Red Mandarin Hotel key that my grandma gave me. Kitty and her friends must have been trying to enter the penthouse suite of the Shangri-La with the wrong key. Suddenly, I’m so relieved by this mistake. But I’m also furious at Frank. What if Kitty and her friends had gotten into our apartment? What would they have done?! Would they have physically hurt Uncle Dai, Auntie Yingfei, and Ruby?

  Auntie Yingfei asks me again if I’m pregnant.

  It’s my turn to apologize and explain that the emergency was a ruse.

  “You need to move the building of your new hotel,” I plead after a long pause.

  Ruby chimes in. “Iris is right, Bàba. Hundreds of thousands of people will lose a school and housing if you build this hotel.”

  She switches to Chinese and argues with Uncle Dai.

  Auntie Yingfei intervenes. I’ve never heard her talk so loudly.

  She points at me. I smile hopefully. She doesn’t react. Then she points to Ruby, who crosses her arms and sticks out her lower lip in determination.

  There’s more intense, rapid-fire conversation in Chinese. I really wish I was watching this on a large television screen with subtitles. I don’t know what’s being said or not said. All I know is that the family can’t agree. Auntie Yingfei is gesturing at us, and Uncle Dai’s mouth opens and closes, as if he’s not sure whether to argue or swallow his pride.

  Ruby and Auntie Yingfei keep talking and seem to be pointing at everything in the room.

  Finally, Uncle Dai looks like he’s about to yell, but Ruby steps in quickly. “What if we raise all the money to cover relocation costs? The hotel hasn’t even been built yet, but how much money would we need to raise?”

  Uncle Dai is staring at both of us, shocked.

  “Weijun, Ruby, you are serious?”

  “Yes,” Ruby says. “This is the only thing I have asked you for that wasn’t for me.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  It’s a fact that I have never asked for money for other people. Especially for strangers.

  “Plus, this would stop the protests so we could move back to the hotel and build favor with the public again,” Ruby says. “It would be great PR for Feng Construction. We can call a press meeting today.”

  He stares at both of us. Like he’s never seen us before. It’s like he thinks that he doesn’t know us. It’s almost comical.

  “What happen?” he asks. “You suddenly are friend? Ruby, are you feeling okay? Iris, you still have travel diarrhea? Is this big JOKE?”

  “No joke,” I say.

  Ruby stands beside me so that we’re linking arms. Like we’re BFFs in a movie about mismatched buddies. It could almost be true, at least in this moment. I am also so proud of my cousin. I did not know that she was fiercely smart in solving real-life problems.

  “You want to move hotel?” Uncle Dai says. “You want to relocate?”

  “This is what Iris and I want,” she says again firmly. “We also want to raise enough money to build a new school for these children. They don’t even have a proper place to learn. You’re always talking about how important education is for anyone to move up in this world. And we saw how poor everyone is.… Iris and I agreed that they really need a school.”

  Seeing Uncle Dai’s deep, unyielding frown, she adds, “I’ll donate my award money from the dog competitions and I’ll work at Feng Corp one day a week.”

  I sense Ruby’s nervousness and I know this is a huge-deal sacrifice for her to work at a company where she’s just not interested. It’s how I felt every day when I was forced to attend high school. Quickly, I add, “I’ll intern too! I’ll work two days a week. We’ll both intern for Feng Corp and do whatever you need us to do.”

  I’m honestly not sure what interning entails, but I’ve survived a Tiger curse from birth, more than one lying, cheating boy, crunchy bugs, and Mandarin lessons, not to mention being shipped to Beijing, which is like being in another dimension of time and space. I’m pretty sure that I can handle almost anything, maybe even possibly take on the GED one day.

  Everyone looks super surprised by my sudden announcement.

  Then Auntie Yingfei beams and nods. “Husband, we once poor too. Yī shì tóng rén. Help everyone because we’re family.”

  Uncle Dai stares at us. “You all want this?” he repeats. “My family want to move hotel and build new school for migrant? You and Iris are friend? You will both lea
rn business from me?”

  “Yes!” I agree, nodding eagerly. “We want to help.”

  No one says anything for a while.

  Ruby grips my elbow like she’s holding on to the railing of a scary ride at an amusement park. We both can’t breathe. Especially me. I don’t know how Uncle Dai the Dragon will react. Will he scream and burn us into crispy meat? Will he just keep frowning until Ruby’s watch beeps for dinnertime?

  I don’t know how to contribute meaningfully to the conversation, so I begin to clap enthusiastically. Like I’m cheering for a rock band about to go onstage. I keep clapping until my hands begin to hurt. I clap right up close to my uncle’s face.

  Looking dazed and confused, Uncle Dai begins to clap back.

  When we’ve finished at least three rounds of applause, Uncle Dai grudgingly agrees to figure out the numbers.

  Ruby and Auntie Yingfei applaud and cheer. I whoop loudly, and everyone stops and asks me if I’m feeling okay.

  32

  #1 Fundraiser

  My parents arrive in the hotel lobby. They rush to hug me. I haven’t seen them in over eight weeks, but it feels as if I saw them three television seasons ago. I’m practically a completely different person now.

  When I look in the mirror, I almost radiate a new authentic kind of feline confidence. I glow, and it’s not new foundation or beach bronzer. I have never felt so incredibly proud about something that wasn’t purchased with a Visa card. It’s like I finally understand my sole purpose for existing. Madame Xing was right: I should have followed my instincts long ago.

  When my parents hug me, I hug them back tightly.

  I am about to apologize for my reckless behavior, but my dad starts talking as if he’s downed four shots of espresso in one sitting.

  “Iris, we are so sorry about everything!” he says. His eyes start watering and by default, mine start gushing like broken faucets too. “It’s our fault that you are having a baby!”